


Where First Kisses Grow Cold

by Jessa



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Gore, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sad, necrophilic kiss, repressed_bisexual!Jace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25546189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/pseuds/Jessa
Summary: Jace never expected Alec’s death would lead him to any kind of comfort.Diverting from S1 Ep04, the scene in which Magnus and Alec first meet but imagining that Jace is there too and that Alec doesn’t save anybody.
Relationships: Alec Lightwood/Jace Wayland, Magnus Bane/Jace Wayland
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23
Collections: Hunter's Moon Creation Exchange





	Where First Kisses Grow Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Polarnacht](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polarnacht/gifts).



> Polarnacht, it's just a short thing so I made you a manip as well. I was so nervous about writing for you so a couple of people did help me with this (you know who you are, thank you xx) 
> 
> I really really hope you enjoy this gift, just for you, Polarnacht! <3

Jace can hear the conflict. Alec can probably hear it too, ahead of him; he’s further along the hallway, he entered it first. They lost sight of each other in the alley.

The Circle member responsible for that is now bleeding out from the neck and Jace is sprinting back to be by Alec inside Pandemonium. Their bond is his beacon and Jace follows it faithfully until the broad, black-clad shoulders are back in his sights. Reassuring him that _yes_ his parabatai is close and his senses are right; they always are about Alec. 

The strong and familiar frame flits from his field of vision again as Alec ducks left, into the room ahead. Jace quickens his feet to catch up until he rounds the corner and finds the source of the conflict they’ve been hearing. 

Already Alec is meters deep inside the room. Too far for Jace to reach without another sprint. Between them is the warlock, mired in combat, and Alec’s bow is poised. The whisper of his arrow meets Jace’s ears just as his brain starts to whir into overdrive, piecing the details of this scene together. 

Alec is not defendable from here. Not with the weapon Jace wields. He watches the arrowhead pierce the leg of the rogue the warlock faces. The foe falls but the scimitar they hold is still spry; Alec should sense it but doesn’t and through the bond, Jace feels him relax. 

It has something to do with the warlock, Jace can sense it. Alec’s eyes are off the fallen spoil; they’ve found another interest and that knowledge tugs at something deep inside of Jace as Alec preps a second arrow, still missing the critical detail. And Jace fills his lungs with more than oxygen.

“Alec!” he bellows in horror for all the things he knows he cannot stop now. He’s simply too far away and the blade of the scimitar is already another whisper through the air, making no sound when it cleaves through Alec’s torso. 

And all of the wind is knocked from Jace but he’s not fuelled by the intake of air anymore anyway. What drives him to close the distance between himself and Alec has nothing to do with the warrior oaths they’ve sworn. 

And it’s almost an afterthought - reaching down on the way past now to snap the rogue’s neck with his bare hands, not even bothering to execute by weapon - as the greatest ache that Jace will ever know starts to power a mourning he’ll never forget. This is the beginning of losing his Alec. 

Jace stumbles to him, tears of shock streaming down both of their faces. Alec’s and Jace’s. Always mirrors. Always connected. Even in death. And Jace’s voice is yet another whisper through the air. 

“Alec...”

They find the floor of the room together. Jace cradling Alec’s head in his arms as the men’s eyes lock and brim with a pain that’s shared. 

“Jace,” Alec breathes. Inwards. The last he’ll ever take.

Alec’s hands extend and Jace complies with what he feels they want. Jace lowers his face to Alec’s as he lays dying on the floor of the room. Jace knows it. And it’s all he can do but try to bring him back with a mortal technique. There’s no rune for this. 

Even though the blade is so far through him Jace can feel its edge scrape across the leather of his pants as he holds Alec’s body in his lap, he still tries. Amidst the persistent seep of blood and the cascade of tears, the men’s mouths touch. Jace covering Alec’s lips with his own, exhaling to breathe back the life and take away the death but it’s hopeless. He lifts his mouth in futility and rounds on Magnus Bane with nothing less than a highly acerbic purpose.

“You’re a warlock,” he hisses, narrowing his blue-brown eyes at the glints of magic he can still see alive in Magnus’. “Help him.”

“I cannot help with this,” Magnus murmurs. “Death is not a thing I can reverse without a heavy price.”

“Bull-fucking-shit you can’t,” Jace chokes. “Do it. F-fucking save him!”

“Jace,” Magnus whispers again. “I feel how much you love him.”

The words sting like whiskey poured on an open wound and yet Jace’s voice is as soft as a hand that might care for a thing like that. As gentle as cloth might try to daub at only a graze. Clean it of everything that causes it pain, and start to heal it. Cleansing like a thing that could wash all this away like it was only a knee he scraped when they were kids. And not the thing that was taking his Alec away from him forever. 

“I don’t,” Jace whispers. “I don’t love him. He was my parabatai...my brother...there’s a difference and you would never understand it, Downworlder. You don’t know about things like...this.”

Magnus kneels to him. “Never deny the love you feel,” he whispers back. “Even if you only ever feel it once. Never feel shame for it, Shadowhunter. I may be a warlock, yes. I’ll always be. But I, like you, have a human heart. And it does understand this.”

“I don’t feel shame,” Jace hisses again. “I don’t feel shame about a thing I don’t feel, or do...I don’t love him, I don’t! I didn’t...what I did is kill him...I killed him...I...by the Angel...” 

Magnus rubs his back as the tears rack his body, possessing him in a way he’d never let a demon. And yet here one is. Inside him. Pouring hurt into him. And around him. Comforting him while he cries.

Jace leans down to Alec again and he puts his lips to his mouth once more. He tries again to give him breath. But this is not a kiss of life anymore. This is his first kiss of mourning. 

Jace kisses Alec even though his lips, by now, are cold and stiff. Even though Alec is not kissing back. Even though Alec is not here to witness what Jace would do if he could just have the last few minutes back to do this all over again.

Jace kisses everything he’s ever left unsaid. Every look he’s ever been thrown covertly. Every touch he’s received that hasn’t just been a mistimed hit or a purposefully lazy dodge. Jace kisses everything that could have ever been if Jace had been as brave as his heart had yearned for him to be. And Jace kisses for Alec. Having always felt in him every one of these same things too.

Hands pull him away and they pull him in and they cradle Jace, for many minutes. They hold him and they rock him and Jace cries until there’s nothing more to spill. His muscles are so sore but that pain feels so good. And the rocking feels good too.

The murmuring sounds that Magnus is making to him now are like the passage he and Alec traveled down to get here. The hallway they followed. To the site of Alec’s death. Deep and dark. He wanders it. His only aim to be guided by the low voice of Magnus.

Jace looks up into his bi-colored eyes, like Jace’s own. He reaches up to be nearer. To touch the face they belong to. What he finds there is rough and stubbled. These cheeks aren’t Alec’s but they feel as good as the pain and the rocking. Like everything would still, should still, feel had he not allowed what he had to happen.

He chokes again at the thought and Magnus leans down. Kisses Jace’s temples. And the feelings this stirs in Jace begin to lead him out of the dark as Magnus’ tongue still gifts him murmurs. His arms still rock him and Jace is still so sore. And tired; his head now as heavy as his heart, and his soul aches. But with those realizations come the sweetest releases. 

Magnus places a kiss to Jace’s mouth. Kneading back all the warmth that he has just lost. In this place, where his first kisses grow as cold as the lovely lips he’s left them on, Jace finds the source of a new kind of sleep. 

Dreamless and painless. How he will wake from this, he doesn’t know. Perhaps the world will be just as creweled by loss. Nothing will bring back Alec. But maybe Magnus will bring him more warmth. Some of this same kind of comfort again.


End file.
